Chapter 2 - Not all Advice is Good Advice ??

Welcome back to part 2, and this weeks installment ??

So, lets continue the story of where I’ve got to, if you didn't get chance to read episode 1 then the link is HERE

As you might know I've decided to document my journey as part of this newsletter feature and the plan is that each episode will cover a part of my backstory, the real me.

I’m sure not everyone will want to read it, but if it helps inspire just one of you then it has been worth writing about. Sure, we are a technical and software company today, but this is my story, so I hope it helps.

Accidents happen, and now was the time to think about what I could do next, there was no chance of following the career that I had chosen, I had a friend that was a theatre lighting engineer, basically managed the lighting at large events and gigs and had been on tour with some epic bands and being in my early 20’s I thought this sounded perfect. I had been on an electrical apprenticeship when the accident happened, but the idea of being on tour and traveling gave me something to aspire to.

But it was not to be, strangely having had to recover, I now had this phobia of ladders and even to this day I struggle with simple tasks of being off the floor. It is not quite vertigo, but I remember, so just tend to avoid it.

But I was now 21 turning 22 years old, I had no real qualifications, no prospects and my what would now be called mental health was very broken. For nearly 6 months I never left the house, with some very very dark days where I’d conclude that life was not worth anything, and it was probably not worth continuing with. I chose to preserver as something told me that I would recover, I would find a path to follow, and everything would be ok eventually.

I’m not in any way religious, and it was very hard to explain, but I just knew that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and I just had to find the light switch, find that path and rebuild some sort of potential career. 

In the 1980’s and 1990’s the idea of long term and a job for life was a normal thing, today things are different there is so many different opportunities that you can change direction but back then schooling and qualification usually set the path you were destined to follow.

By shear coincidence a friend of mine who was also a qualified electrician said to me that he had started night school, he was going to learn how to program a computer as there was going to be a huge demand for software in the future, and he found with his electrical training it was very easy.

My initial reaction was HELL NO that is for nerds and geeks, but after a few more weeks of doing nothing and sitting at home I thought MAYBE, and the light at the end of the tunnel started to blink and flicker.

Having not been out of the house for many months I did a very crazy thing, I grabbed my crutches and headed to the bus stop, with the intention of getting to one of the colleges in Blackpool.  I had been told by my doctors not to overdo it, not to put any weight on the hip, but with the way I was at the time, I thought I’m doing this.   

Through the whole of the bus ride, I regretted it, but I was on my way, so there was no turning back. I was not sure what I expected, but getting to the college I found a person, who found another person and so on. 

Now most normal people would probably have phoned to find out what was available, but my state of mind was not in a logical place, so I just rocked up and explain what had happened to me and threw myself at their mercy, ok that sounds a little drastic, but I was desperate, and I needed to move on. 

It tuned out that courses ran from September to June who knew, not me, and you guessed it, it was already June, but there was an opportunity, a real opportunity, a gift maybe, the college were running  a 12 week summer session for those that were out of work or injured, and there was a place left, so I was offered it, but it had to be paid for by the job centre, so I had to get an appointment and visit a job replacement training officer. 

To cut the story short I got to the Job centre in Blackpool another crazy bus trip, and had a meeting, but it did not go to plan. I had taken all my medical reports for the pending court case,

and the advice I was given was

“don’t bother retraining, with this injury you can claim benefits for the rest of your life, let the state pay”. 

Some people might have accepted this, but it just made me angry, and with my state of mind at the time I made it very clear I wanted to go on that course.

Reluctantly I was given a voucher to pay for the 12 weeks, and the light at the end of the tunnel flickered a little more brightly as things started to move forward.

Two weeks later I was back in the classroom the first time in 5 years, and there were some real dropouts from society, you know the ones, people that had not worked out that they needed to wash, those addicted to drink and drugs, but I was there, and I had an opportunity so I was going to make the best possible use of it.

Throughout this whole sorry time, I was given all sorts of advice, oh you should do XYZ, I could have ended up anywhere but next time I’ll share a little bit more of how I went from broken to where I am today.

Thank for reading and I totally understand this is not for everyone, so just unsubscribe if you don’t want any more   

Cheers

Alistair

You can also catch up with the first part of the story HERE